Friday, 13 July 2012

Officially off the Market, Fellas!

It was bound to happen. Everything was leading to this moment, and yet... it still caught me a little bit unawares...

Guess what? This single lad-ay, is now just a... lad-ay. What I'm subtly trying to get across here, without actually having to type it out (which was a big ol' waste of time, because typing it out is precisely what I'm about to do right now...), is that B.F. is now my actual BF. My boyf, everyone, B.F. is now my boyfriend.

Lord.

Not sure what this now means for us, but I know what it means for me. It means that now when I introduce him, I have to say something weird and awkward like, 'so, hey everyone, this is my boyfriend...' Gross. OR, even grosser, my friends have free reign to start being the most annoying they can possibly be by taking it upon themselves to say outrageous, unnecessary things when they meet him, like, 'oooooh, so you're B.F., the famous B.F., that B.F. that we talk about all the time, Silv's big ol' famous b o y f r i e n d !!'

Broke out into a cold sweat just writing that. And that's not just me being a dickhead (although I may have used a tiny bit of artistic license on the exact wording... and I may actually just be a dickhead regardless...); one of my friends genuinely did say that to him when she met him for the first time last week. She's not a good friend, granted, but she is a human being, and with that title, I would think that the tiniest bit of tact would be a part of her DNA. Apparently not. As soon as she'd had a few drinks she even 'whispered' (actually just put her hand over my ear, made eye contact with B.F., and shouted in my direction), 'he is SO hot! Well done you! You go girlfriend! Can't believe you snagged such a catch! He is SO French! I am SO jealous! I want a French boyfriend!'(once again, I can't confirm that the words 'you go girlfriend' were actually used, but just go with me on this one) And etc., until everyone involved was as uncomfortable as possible.

Even my mum's jumped on the bandwagon. Completely unsurprising, but annoying nonetheless. She's taken to asking in nearly all of her texts, 'seeing B.F. tonight?'

And I usually am, so I say, 'yes Ma, I'm seeing B.F. tonight...'

And unable to curb any enthusiasm with regards to matters of the heart of anyone, never mind her only daughter, that obviously leads to her needing to know every single detail. A couple of nights ago, I foolishly told her that I was on the Champs de Mars with him, looking at the Eiffel Tower's twinkly little love lights, and she text back, 'can't think of anywhere more romantic!!!' (And, for once, I haven't even exaggerated the amount of exclamation marks used...) So...

'Well how did this all come about?!', I hear you eagerly ask.

'In much the same way as our last conversation about where we stand went actually', I now answer you.

I think the 'areyouseeinganyoneelse' night set the tone for the whole relationship quite honestly. Any conversation that needs to be had now seems to go a little something like this: I bring up something about us as a twosome, that I'm inevitably uncomfortable about discussing ; he looks at me in utter disbelief, and simplifies all my worries into one quick, seemingly obvious solution; he makes me feel a bit stupid for even asking whatever I asked; we end up closer/officially together/married.

This time, he'd invited me to his cousin's birthday party in a bangin' area of the city, and I didn't really want to go, what with it being a family thing and shit. But B.F. convinced me that it was completely casual and that there was fuckloads of champagne, so I really couldn't turn it down. So I headed on over, in a pretty typical get-up of mostly denim, with some weird headwear and a smidgen of leather, but when I saw where the party was, I almost turned around and got back onto the metro. The apartment was one of the flyyyyyest I've ever seen, and that's saying something, being as the families I worked for here all have unreal places. I'm talking chandeliers, fairy lights installed into the ceiling (sounds tacky as fuck, but somehow looked absolutely necessary, and quite frankly, magical), people dressed in ballgowns...

So there's me and B, the youngest guests by a mile, sticking out like twin sore thumbs, and he's as happy as Larry. Happier than Larry even.

He's also extremely drunk.

While I was dithering around, trying to talk myself into going to the stupid party, and then taking a fair few decades to find the apartment, B had gotten a very unfair headstart on the alcohol.

To overcompensate for my discomfort, I tried to be as sociable as possible, and two Chinese guests latched onto me. They liked my headwear, so I liked them. They took me under their wings, and were being nosey little rascals about me and B, asking completely inappropriate and I R R E L E V A N T questions, like, 'so how strong are the feelings between you two?', and, 'what are you both going to do when you leave France?!' I know! So probe-y! So I humoured them where possible, but drinks had been consumed, and all tact had been left at the office, so much more often than was strictly necessary, my new friends would say, 'so where is your boyfriend?', or they'd say to B, 'come and join your girlfriend before we get too attached!' And B didn't even flinch. Not once. All this whilst I was writhing around in utter discomfort of course.
So on our way home from the party, I 'casually' (ha!) thought I'd try and gauge B's opinion on the whole hoo-hah.

This is a cheeky little transcript (as close to the real chain of events as humanly possible) of the conversation that followed:

Me: 'You know those boys at the party?'B.F.: 'The ones you were talking to?'Me: 'Yeah, those ones.'B.F.: 'Yeah.'Me: 'They kept calling you my boyfriend hahahahahahaha'.Cue insane, manic, strait-jacket-deserving laughter...
B.F. looks at me in utter disbelief (told ya there was a pattern!)B.F.: 'So...?'
Cue me toning the laughter down to a nervous giggle.Me: 'Well... I... erm...'
At this point B.F. literally stops walking, and turns to look at me, disbelief and, yes I'm going to say it, disappointment, glowing in his little brown eyes.B.F.: 'Well, aren't I?'Oh shit.Me: 'Well, we've just... never talked about it and...'B.F.: 'So who am I to you?'Ohhhhh shit.Me: 'Well who am I to you?'Immature, je sais, but I panicked... Give me a break! B.F.: 'You're not changing this around now...'Watch me!Me: 'No, but seriously though, we've never actually discussed it, so...'B.F.: 'Well you're my girlfriend. I didn't think we had to say it out loud. I thought it was obvious.'Oh bloody hell. Well obviously it seems like the most obvious thing ever now... Cue me feeling ridiculous again for a change...
So anyway, I won't bore you with any more of this word for word account (I'm well aware that it doesn't make for very riveting reading), but I basically backtracked as much as possible, and tried to explain to him that it's just because I'm generally used to stuff being a lot less simple in relationships.B.F.: 'I don't like complicated.'Ah man, neither do I, bubs, neither do I.
...and that's how I ended up with B.F. as my B-word.

I have approximately zero false pretensions about what's going to happen when I leave, so I'm just going to enjoy it while it's still fresh and fun. However, pessimism or no pessimism...
Foot. Mouth. I always put the first into the second. Yum. Upon discussion with one of my friends in the foyer (I do have some, you guys!!) about how Long Distance Relationships could possibly work, I was throwing some valid and rational points around, like, 'babe, they NEVER work in ANY case.' This gem was provided by me right before remembering that the Foyer Friend in question is currently enjoying (not sure if that's the right verb- maybe 'suffering' or 'putting up with' are more fitting) an L.D.R.
I quickly saved the situation by saying, 'obviously it's different if you've already been together a long time when you leave...' Gem number 2. It quickly dawned on me that she got together with her L.D.B.F. exactly one day before she came away to Paris. Cool.
Always just speaking out of turn, aren't I?
The weird thing is, I shouldn't even feel like this about L.D.R.s, being as my very own parents worked an L.D.R. And they worked it well.
What's more, my beloved L.T. and her L.D.B.F. were hunky dory the whole time she was away from him in the South of France too. So maybe I'm just wrong as per always, and maybe it really does depend on the couple and... the situation?
WHO KNOWS.
Not me.

And with that, my little fairy princesses, I'm off to see my... *ahem*... boyfriend.